The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by U. S. President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001; the title of the Act is a contrived three letter initialism preceding a seven letter acronym, which in combination stand for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. The acronym was created by 23-year-old Congressional staffer Chris Cylke. In response to the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks, Congress passed legislation to strengthen national security. On October 23, 2001, Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner introduced H. R. 3162 incorporating provisions from a previously-sponsored House bill and a Senate bill introduced earlier in the month. The next day, the Act passed the House by a vote of 357–66, with Democrats comprising the overwhelming portion of dissent; the three Republicans voting "no" were Robert Ney of Ohio, Butch Otter of Idaho, Ron Paul of Texas. On October 25, the Act passed the Senate by a 98–1 vote, the only dissident being Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

Those opposing the law have criticized its authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants. Since its passage, several legal challenges have been brought against the act, federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional. Many of the act's provisions were to sunset beginning December 31, 2005 four years after its passage. In the months preceding the sunset date, supporters of the act pushed to make its sun-setting provisions permanent, while critics sought to revise various sections to enhance civil liberty protections. In July 2005, the U. S. Senate passed a reauthorization bill with substantial changes to several of the act's sections, while the House reauthorization bill kept most of the act's original language; the two bills were reconciled in a conference committee criticized by Senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties for ignoring civil liberty concerns. The bill, which removed most of the changes from the Senate version, passed Congress on March 2, 2006, was signed by President Bush on March 9 and 10 of that year.

On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, a four-year extension of three key provisions in the Act: roving wiretaps, searches of business records, conducting surveillance of "lone wolves"—individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities not linked to terrorist groups. Following a lack of Congressional approval, parts of the Patriot Act expired on June 1, 2015. With passing the USA Freedom Act on June 2, 2015, the expired parts were restored and renewed through 2019. However, Section 215 of the law was amended to stop the National Security Agency from continuing its mass phone data collection program. Instead, phone companies will retain the data and the NSA can obtain information about targeted individuals with permission from a federal court. Title I of the Patriot Act authorizes measures to enhance the ability of domestic security services to prevent terrorism; the title established a fund for counter-terrorist activities and increased funding for the Terrorist Screening Center, administered by the FBI.

The military was authorized to provide assistance in some situations that involve weapons of mass destruction when so requested by the Attorney General. The National Electronic Crime Task Force was expanded, along with the President's authority and abilities in cases of terrorism; the title condemned the discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans that happened soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The impetus for many of the provisions came from earlier bills, for instance the condemnation of discrimination was proposed by Senator Tom Harkin in an amendment to the Combatting Terrorism Act of 2001, though in a different form, it included "the prayer of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington in a Mass on September 12, 2001 for our Nation and the victims in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist hijackings and attacks in New York City, Washington, D. C. and Pennsylvania reminds all Americans that'We must seek the guilty and not strike out against the innocent or we become like them who are without moral guidance or proper direction.'"

Further condemnation of racial vilification and violence is spelled out in Title X, where there was condemnation of such activities against Sikh Americans, who were mistaken for Muslims after the September 11th terrorist attack. Title II is titled "Enhanced Surveillance Procedures", covers all aspects of the surveillance of suspected terrorists, those suspected of engaging in computer fraud or abuse, agents of a foreign power who are engaged in clandestine activities, it made amendments to FISA and the ECPA. In particular, the title allows government agencies to gather "foreign intelligence information" from both U. S. and non-U. S. Citizens, changed FISA to make gaining foreign intelligence information the significant purpose of FISA-based surveillance, where it had been the primary purpose; the change in definition was meant to remove a legal "wall" between criminal investigations and surveillance for the purposes of gathering foreign in

The GITAM School of Architecture, Visakhapatnam is a constituent institute of Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management located in Visakhapatnam, specializing education and research in the field of architecture. It was established in 2011, it offers Bachelor of Master of Architecture. Admissions to the under graduate programme is through the Joint Entrance Examination or NATA conducted by the Council of Architecture. Foreign nationals, non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin candidates are eligible to apply and should have qualifications from the foreign boards/universities recognized as equivalent by the Association of Indian Universities to be shortlisted for further evaluations; the present campus has two non A. C. hostels. One is for another for girls. Both GSA Library and Knowledge Resource Centre in GITAM holds knowledge resources predominantly related to Architecture; the entire library collection including the CD-ROM and online databases which are made available through the institute’s network.

Users can access the online databases, Digital library and find out the real-time availability of library materials from their own computer terminals. The library offers a high range of information services set to the highest professional standards; the library resource includes over 300 books which are related to fields of architecture, 75 journals specific to the academic and research needs of the academic community and over 5000 selective e-journals in full-text. List of institutions of higher education in Andhra PradeshSchool of Planning and Architecture, VijayawadaMinistry of Human Resource Development